“How much caffeine do you need?” Felton Kizer is fond of asking customers who come into Monday Coffee Company. Then, depending on their response, Kizer sets off to concoct something unique: a cold brew, a latte, a chai tea.

Monday Coffee Company launched last October, showing up at pop-up events like the Ace Hotel for Compop or Logan Square’s Sauced Sundays. For a year and a half before that, though, Kizer and his partner Amanda Harth had been discussing going into the coffee business. They felt it would be a way to foster community in the midst of the pandemic.

“We wanted to create something that would keep people connected at a time when they were unable to meet,” Harth, 33, said.

More than that, they wanted to create a Black- and queer-owned business that supported similar businesses during a time when calls for social justice rang out across the country.

“I’m not the marching-and-burning-buildings type of guy,” Kizer said. “I’m a blow-up-the-establishment type of guy.”

For Kizer, a queer Black man, that meant addressing what he called the whitewashing of the coffee industry. He said no matter how many coffeehouses and cafes he went into, he rarely saw someone who looked like him at the helm.

“Where do people get their coffee from? Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Brazil — all very Black and Brown countries,” Kizer, 27, said. “But I walk into a cafe, and it’s very white, it’s very weird, and it’s very aggressive. Someone is taking your culture, literally selling it back to you, but also telling you that you’re not really good enough to have this thing that is part of your ancestors.”

Now, Kizer and Harth are fighting that whitewashing through Monday Coffee Company’s new residency at Washington Park’s former Currency Exchange Cafe at 305 E. Garfield Blvd.

The residency was offered through the Rebuild Foundation’s Retreat at Currency Exchange program. Rebuild is a non-profit founded by artist and University of Chicago professor Theaster Gates. The Retreat program supports Black artists and culinary entrepreneurs through things like residencies across the South Side.

“When I met them, I could see their passion for their business,” Gates said. “Their kindness combined with their personal work ethic, aesthetic, intention and willingness to innovate with their products is great for small business.”

As part of the residency, Harth and Kizer created and priced a menu, serving tea and coffee during the day and boozy latte cocktails in the evening. Monday Coffee Company’s grounds are roasted in Grand Rapids, Mich., then brewed on site at their new location. The space also has Wi-Fi and meeting spaces for other entrepreneurs.

Harth and Kizer are running Monday Coffee Company based on their idea of sustainability and inclusivity. They intentionally settled in a predominantly Black area of the city; their tea comes from a Black female-owned business; they have direct contact with their coffee bean farmers; and they have promised to remain transparent about changes in the business with their customers.

Amanda Harth, co-founder of Monday Coffee Company, prepares a drink at Retreat at Currency Exchange Cafe, located at 305 E. Garfield Blvd. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

“We don’t want the traditional coffee shop,” Harth said. “We see (Monday Coffee Company) existing in moments and experiences.”

Kizer and Harth agree what makes Monday Coffee Company so unique is their newness to the coffee industry. Before starting the business, Kizer used to be a portrait photographer, and Harth was in fashion.

“We don’t have a background in coffee, so we could do whatever we want,” Kizer said. “We don’t have that pressure of the industry trying to tell us what to do.”

While Kizer used his interpersonal skills, honed from his photography days, to help generate an atmosphere of community and comfortability, Harth applied her finance and marketing skills from fashion.

“If nothing else, the product is going to look cute!” Harth said. “It’s going to be … great branding, great packaging, and it’s going to tell a story.”

The coffeehouse will welcome customers Aug. 26 at an official launch party. The event will include a coffee tasting, an experiential barista’s menu, coffee cocktails and music by DJ Sean Doe.

Cheyanne M. Daniels is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South and West sides.

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Did you miss the warning about this summer being especially bad for wasps? Yeah, me too. Even though our 115-year-old farmhouse has all sorts of eaves and hollows, places where wasps gather.

Though you believe it, right? Of course you do. If you’re like me, the one-damn-thing-after-another quality of the past year has led to dull acceptance of almost any horror.

If I ran into a neighbor carrying a bucket of water and a ladle, and he explained, “It’s for the burning frogs falling from the sky. They scorch the lawn, but a quick ladle of water fixes that,” I’d shrug and think, “Oh right, the burning frogs. Better get a bucket …”

Then that’s me. I look at people simply denying one obvious situation or another — COVID, global warming, systemic racism — with blinking incomprehension. It’s … right … there. Just … open your eyes and … look.

No? Can’t do that? Not into the whole perceiving-what’s-in-front-of-you game? I guess that’s your way of coping with the stress of bad stuff: “If I don’t see it, it’s not there.” But c’mon buddy, graduate kindergarten, put on your big-boy pants and join the adults.

Maybe it’s a Jewish thing. All the optimists in my family are buried in a pit back in Poland.

Yes, grasping trouble can be a process. The tendency is to ignore or minimize problems. Most summers, the wasps spout from a chink in the brick foundation in front of our house. Out of harm’s way.

This summer, naturally, the wasps took up residence under the window box jutting onto the porch, inches from our front door. As we came and went, we’d see wasps coming and going, a wasp parody of our routine. Still, a situation I can handle, or so I thought. I’m not immune to underestimating perils.

Off to the Ace Hardware for a couple cans of wasp-be-gone. Then two more. Then four more. Then another three. I’d fire the murderous foam into the hole then stand as the alarm went out and the wasps arrived at their besieged home, only to be picked off, one by one. There was a grim satisfaction to it.

My wife wondered if perhaps we should call the exterminator. No need, honey, I told her. Why spend a fortune when a few 2-for-$5 cans of Wasp Away will do the trick? Prudence! And patience!

After a few days of this I fancied I was knocking back the wasp horde. Yes, I got bit, twice. And when I went to paint the porch steps, I noticed a second hole where wasps were also coming and going, so started firing wasp spray into that.

Then as I stood, patiently, slaying wasps at the window box, I saw a straggler flying, not to my side of the box or the steps, but to the far side of the window box. A third entrance. So I relocated there, and was spritzing liquid death at the flying beasties.

My wife was inside, watching me through the bay window, a look of concern — needless concern, I felt — on her face.

Then she did something I would not have done had I dealt with this problem for 100 years, because she is a genius. Or perhaps because she is a woman, with all the resourcefulness that allows women, on average, to live five years longer than men.

She put her ear to the wooden seat of the window box and listened. I reacted — and this is the reason I’m writing this, so pay attention — with a scowl of scorn, and thought, “Oh right, like you’re going to hear the wasps.”

When I finished spraying wasps and went inside and also pressed my ear against the window box seat.

Ah.

To say it “buzzed” would be a mockery of the terrifying sound I heard. It sounded like every wasp on earth gathered in one place. A dull roar. I haven’t been to hell, yet, but I am confident it sounds exactly like this.

“Call the exterminator!” I announced, straightening up. She did. Only $125. “They’re deadly this year,” said Bob, from Aerex Pest Control. “They’ll kill you.” Not unless I kill them first.

Looking at that journey, from Why-Is-She-Listening-to-the-Window-Box-Is-She-Crazy? to My-God-Call-the-Exterminator-NOW I wonder why so many of my fellow citizens can’t follow the same path regarding, say, COVID.

Maybe because I’m trained, through disposition, heritage and profession, to take in new information, no matter how unwelcome, process it and then act. Even if it requires changing my mind and my course of action.

I’ve said before: Once you start ignoring reality, then the reality being ignored doesn’t matter, whether 630,000 American dead, regular firestorms or an ocean of transparent bigotry.

We need to find the COVID version of the sound of thousands of wasps living in your window box. Maybe get a few videos of intubated children on Twitter. That might not work either, when dealing with stone denialists, the type who wrote off Sandy Hook as a hoax performed by crisis actors. Hard cases. They can be dying themselves, and it still doesn’t dawn on them that COVID might be real.

The cold response would be, “Let ’em die, and increase the average intelligence of our nation.” But that’s heartless and reeks of the callous cruelty that the Right has already trademarked. I hate to mimic them.

Besides, children are involved, and it’s not their fault their parents are idiots. So let’s put it this way: The wasps were there whether I listened or not. A problem doesn’t stop existing just because you won’t perceive it. Wake up.

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Don Everly, who along with his brother Phil, formed the pioneering pop rock-country duo the Everly Brothers, has died. He was 84.

According to reports in Variety and Hollywood Reporter, Don Everly died at his Nashville, Tennessee, home. His family did not release a cause of death.

A statement from his family to the Los Angeles Times read, in part: “Don lived by what he felt in his heart, Don expressed his appreciation for the ability to live his dreams … with his soulmate and wife, Adela, and sharing the music that made him an Everly Brother.”

Musical artists Don and Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers support Simon and Garfunkel’s second of two UK gigs on July 15, 2004 in Hyde Park, London.Getty Images

While Don Everly was born in Kentucky in 1937, the family moved to Chicago, where in 1939, Phil Everly was born. The family eventually relocated to Nashville in the 1950s.

Originally performing on radio in the 1940s along with their parents as The Everly Family, the Nashville, Tennessee-raised Everly Brothers duo burst on the music scene in the late 1950s. With their distinctive harmonies driven by their upfront acoustic guitar playing, they released such hits at “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Crying in the Rain,” “All I Have to Do is Dream” and their biggest-selling hit “Cathy’s Clown,” released in 1960. Their music influenced a generation of harmony-driven pop/rock icons who followed, including the Beach Boys, the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel.

Though they continued to perform as a team, the brothers eventually also pursued solo careers and went through a highly publicized falling out in the 1980s over songwriting credits and royalties.

The Everly Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, part of the inaugural group of artists to be so honored. Rolling Stone ranked them as the No. 1 duo of all time in 2014. In his 2010 memoir “Life,” Keith Richards called Don Everly “one of the finest rhythm players.”

Phil Everly died in 2014.

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All the pieces fell into place for Loyola during the spring. The Ramblers were experienced, smart and talented. They weren’t significantly challenged after the season opener at St. Rita.

Loyola began and finished the season at No. 1 and senior running back Vaughn Pemberton was the Sun-Times Player of the Year.

The one downside of so much senior experience is that it inevitably graduates. Coach John Holecek has to replace 16 starters.

“It feels like we could have another month of preseason and I’d be fine with it,” Holecek said. “Last year we had a ridiculous amount of time. This is going back to square one.”

There is a silver lining. The Ramblers’ Class of 2021 was so dominant that the backups received some significant playing time last season.

Junior Jake Stearney, the new starter at quarterback, flashed his big arm against Phillips.

“He’ll make a couple mistakes but man, he’s poised and fast and he’s got a good arm,” Holecek said. “He can throw it so hopefully our receivers are healthy enough that he can get some open targets.”

Senior running back Marco Maldonado has been in the ball-carrying rotation for several seasons. Receiver Danny Collins is also back along with two experienced offensive linemen, senior John Michael Talanges and junior Michael Kostantonov.

Those are all the pieces necessary for an effective offense. There are more questions on defense, where the only notable returners are lineman Mike Williams and linebacker James Kreutz.

“Kreutz is unbelievably, perfectly suited [for linebacker] he could be a breakout all-stater right away,” Holecek said. “I don’t know why he doesn’t have scholarship offers. He’s very destructive.”

Loyola quarterback Jake Stearney (15) looks for his receivers at practice in Wilmette.Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Holecek, a former NFL linebacker, has shown that he will get the defense into shape during the season. So if Loyola can put points on the board the sky is the limit. That’s been an effective formula for several seasons and it could be the case again this year.

Senior Will Maheras, a Yale recruit for lacrosse, has opened eyes this summer in practice.

“He’s going to be a pretty darn good corner and we have some other kids that are playing well. It’s just experience and meshing. They are heady kids but we will see what happens. Are we going to be able to match up with [St. Rita senior] Kaleb Brown? I mean, no one is. But can you limit him?”

Loyola’s schedule is punishing, with early games against experienced conference opponents St. Rita and Brother Rice and a Week 9 matchup against a promising young Mount Carmel team that should be dangerous by October. The Ramblers are still looking for a Week 2 opponent.

“Last year’s team was phenomenal and we obviously aren’t up to that level yet but we have potential,” Collins said. “There’s a week before the first game and then nine weeks to get better. We will keep working and see where we are in November.”

LOYOLA SCHEDULE

Aug. 28 vs. Marquette, Wis.

Sep. 11 vs. St. Rita

Sep. 17 at Brother Rice

Sep. 24 at Fenwick

Oct. 2 vs. Marist

Oct. 9 vs. Providence

Oct. 15 at St. Patrick

Oct. 22 at Mount Carmel

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Don Everly, who along with his brother Phil, formed the pioneering rock-country duo the Everly Brothers, has died. He was 84.

According to reports in Variety and Hollywood Reporter, Don Everly died at his Nashville, Tennessee, home. His family did not release a cause of death.

A statement from his family to the Los Angeles Times read, in part: “Don lived by what he felt in his heart, Don expressed his appreciation for the ability to live his dreams … with his soulmate and wife, Adela, and sharing the music that made him an Everly Brother.”

Originally performing on radio in the 1940s along with their parents as The Everly Family, the Nashville, Tennessee-raised Everly Brothers duo burst on the music scene in the 1950s. With their distinctive harmonies driven by their up-front acoustic guitar playing, they released such hits at “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Crying in the Rain,” “All I Have to Do is Dream” and their biggest-selling hit “Cathy’s Clown,” released in 1960. Their music influenced a generation of harmony-driven pop/rock icons who followed, including the Beach Boys, the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel.

The brothers eventually also went on to pursue solo careers and went through a highly publicized falling out in the 1980s over songwriting credits and royalties.

The Everly Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, part of the inaugural group of artists to be so honored. Rolling Stone ranked them as the No. 1 duo of all time in 2014. In his 2010 memoir “Life,” Keith Richards called Don Everly “one of the finest rhythm players.”

Phil Everly died in 2014.

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Three people were wounded in the same neighborhood in North Lawndale Sunday on the West Side.

About 2 a.m., a 26-year-old man was shot multiple times in the leg in the 1200 block of South Lawndale Avenue, Chicago Police said.

He self-transported to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was listed in good condition, police said.

About 50 minutes later, a 36-year-old man was standing outside in the same block when he was shot in the leg, police said.

He self-transported to Mount Sinai where he was also listed in good condition, police said.

About 3:30 a.m., a woman was standing outside when someone emerged from a gangway and opened fire, striking her in the hip and leg, police said.

She was taken to Mount Sinai where she was listed in fair condition, police said.

No one from any of the three shootings was in custody.

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He was on the street about 6:40 p.m. in the 4700 block of South Wolcott Avenue when someone approached him and opened fire, Chicago Police said.

By

Sun-Times Wire

Aug 22, 2021, 3:03am CDT

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One person was killed and four others wounded Sunday in a mass shooting on the West Side.

Officers responded to a call about 1 a.m. in the 3400 block of West Lake Street and discovered five people — four males and a female — shot, Chicago Police said.

A 29-year-old man was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, police said. He hasn’t been identified.

A 17-year-old male was shot in the shoulder and an 18-year-old woman in the torso, police said.

They were both taken to Stroger Hospital where the male was in fair condition and the woman in serious condition, police said.

A 34-year-old man was shot in the arm and a 28-year-old in the arm and chest, police said.

They were both taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where they were listed in fair condition, police said.

No one was in custody.

Five people were wounded and a man was killed in another mass shooting hours earlier in Calumet Heights on the South Side, officials said.

The group was in a parking lot about 9:10 p.m. when two male suspects fired shots from an alley in the 1600 block of East 87th Place, according to police.

A 39-year-old man was struck in the abdomen and showed up at Jackson Park Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. He hasn’t been identified.

Another man, 40, was shot in the back and leg and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, police said. Another 39-year old man was struck in the ankle and was also transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in fair condition.

A fourth man, 32, was shot in the leg and self-transported to Trinity Hospital in good condition, police said.

A 44-year-old woman was struck in the leg and self-transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in fair condition, police said. The other, 25, was shot in the arm and also self-transported to Trinity Hospital.

More than 41 yellow, numbered evidence markers — typically used to denote the location of shell casings — littered the ground at both ends of the block-long alley, which was surrounded by garages on one side and a row of business parking lots to the north.

The crime scene was relatively quiet, outside of some chatter from investigators and cars traveling through a Checkers drive-thru at the west end of the alley.

No arrests were made Saturday night as police investigated.

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